Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy was the father of Leo Tolstoy. He was the eldest of four children of Count Ilya Andreyevich Tolstoy. Nikolai possessed all the qualities of a young aristocrat of his time: he knew French and German perfectly, was keen on poetry, music, and painting, he knew how to waltz and dance the mazurka.

At the age of six, Nikolai Tolstoy was enlisted in civil service, at the age of 17 he switched to the military. He served in the Pavlograd Hussar Regiment, took part in the Patriotic War of 1812 and foreign campaigns of the tsarist army. He participated in the battles of Dresden and Leipzig. Tolstoy’s father was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir of the fourth degree and achieved the rank of staff captain.

In 1814, Nikolai Tolstoy was captured by the French and was released only by the end of the campaign. He resigned in the rank of lieutenant colonel. At the age of 28, he married Maria Nikolayevna Volkonskaya, who was four years older than him. The couple had five children: Nikolai, Sergei, Dmitry, Leo and Maria. They became orphans at a young age: Maria Nikolayevna died of fever six months after giving birth to Maria.

After the death of his wife, Nikolai Tolstoy lived in her family estate in Yasnaya Polyana, where he finished building a large manor house. Its construction was initiated by his father-in-law, Nikolai Sergeyevich Volkonsky. Shortly before his death, Nikolai Tolstoy moved with his children to Moscow. He died on June 21, 1837, in Tula, during a business trip. According to his medical report, Nikolai Ilyich suddenly lost consciousness and died from a “blood stroke”.

Leo Tolstoy attributed many traits of his father and episodes from his biography into the character of Nikolai Rostov from the novel “War and Peace”; Princess Maria Bolkonskaya in the novel in many ways resembles the writer’s mother Maria Volkonskaya.